First hypo

Checked booger yep hours ago and he was 258. Being helicopter mom its two hours from them so I am checking him. He was 45! Panicking but put honey in his mouth and on the phone with vet now. I'm freaking out insife. Trying to stay calm as I can for him.

 

Do you have HC or MC food with gravy?
Squeeze 1 - 2 teaspoons of gravy alone out of the can, or add 3 - 4 drops pf honey or Karo to his reg food and offer.
Take another test after 20 - 30 min.

 

Take a dee-eep breath - you used honey and will bring his numbers up quickly but temporarily.
I'd offer him a bit more to eat now and retest.
How is his behavior - any symptoms ?

 

How is he, have you retested

 

I remember the 1st time this happened to me and I was in such a panic and you guys helped me through, I don’t worry so much now cause I know what to do

 

Yikes!

Please update when you can, we do worry!

 

For next time: when you get a number that really seems out of place like that 45, always do a second BG test right away. Sometimes it's a wonky strip.

Let us know what happens.

 

@LovemyBoogie

Any news on Boogie?

 

@LovemyBoogie
Thinking about you and Boogie...
how are things going?

 

That was supposed to say that I checked him 2 hours ago and he was 258. Thank God I had my mother intuition to check him. He was showing no symptoms of hypo! I immediately retested and it said 48. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen and got the honey, gave him some and then called the vet. My adrenaline was so pumping. I kept trying to offer him his food but he didn't want it. After the honey bumped him up a bit (to 82) thirty minutes after, I waited another 30 minutes and he was still at 82, so I gave him a little bit of gravy. I am honestly not sure how much honey actually made it in his mouth. I accidentally put too much on my finger and I wiped some off and stuck the rest on the inside of his cheek. Just rechecked him and he is up to 207. I think the gravy and little bit of food he ate helped. This is the first time he has gone hypo on me. I knew this would happen eventually but I didn't think it would happen this soon. It is all my fault. If I wouldn't have taken him with me this morning, he wouldn't have been stressed and his blood sugar wouldn't have jumped up and then came crashing down. He really didn't show any symptoms. Just wasn't touching his food and when I checked on him once, he was standing weird in kinda of an 'I just got up but I am just sitting down" weird way like he was caught in the act pooping on the rug. That's when my instinct kicked in to check him. After I checked him and panicked and was waiting for his blood sugar to come up, I kept noticing every once and a while his head would twitch. I am so exhausted. I did not get any sleep last night but I am afraid to go to sleep. I keep telling myself, what if I went to go take a nap instead of checking him??? What is this were to happen while I sleep at night or during the day if I am on my night owl sleep schedule? Am I going to wake up to a motionless cat??????

 

Thankfully, you're testing him and caught the low!
It looks like a dose reduction is definitely in order, but I'll let those who are experienced with vetsulin offer suggestions/advice.

You did a great job pulling his numbers up to keep him safe!

 

Thanks for the update!
Good to hear he is ok.
Turning off MY adrenaline pipe now

 

I went thru weeks and weeks of the same thinking about a year ago, and please take my word for it - it helps nothing. Just the energy drain.
The most valuable thing to remember from today - never judge by the appearance, take a test instead.
I've been to same situation many times, scary - but it serves as a motivator to take that one- more- test-of a day which often turns out as being crucial.
He is up now, give some treat to yourself, too! Booge is safe and you can relax.

PS. Can you please remove the 911 sign? - too many hearts here can drop when they see it.

 

I figured out how to remove it! lol look at me learning once more. Thanks so much for all the support! I thank the lord that I found this forum and all you wonderful souls! How often do you suggest I test him a day? I can not afford to test him every two hours on a daily basis but that sure is what I would like to do!

 

Why not to switch to a human meter? Alpha strips are rediculously expensicve and not as easily available as Relion meter & stripes from Walmart. You can run weekly or biweekly curves on Alpha for your vet and use Relion for every day.

 

I suggest you drop his dose to 2 u. He'll be more insulin sensitive after this so make sure you get a before bed test tonight. If you're home tomorrow get at least one test between +4 and +6 at the 2 u dose. No need to test every two hours. I agree with the suggestion to switch to a human meter now that you see how many strips you can burn through when low numbers pop up.

 

I have a relion meter as well as a freestyle. What concerns me is the difference in the readings. I know today could have been much worse but I also got some bad news after Booger's hypo episode. I no longer have a job When it rains it pours like they say.

 

Sorry about the job loss...
They also often say that when one door closes another one opens.. who knows, maybe your next job will be better. Anyway, you are certainly having one not so good day.
But it makes one happy cat I can think of - Boogie will be happy to have you around all day long for himself .
Both dosing methods that are used on this Board are written for human meters so any one you like best just stick with it and the difference won't matter much. Human meters run lower for safety purposes. I like it. With human meter your take action point is 50 - interfere with higher carbs food. You'll get used to it in no time.

 

I just tested him before his dinner and he is at 581.

 

wow! that is one huge bounce. Do not get discouraged - it is natural and will pass.
Do not forget to reduce the dose - even with such high numbers.

 

Vet told me earlier to bump him down to 2.5, yall are saying 2. I am conflicted bc I do not want him to drop on me again.

 

not to contradict your vet but 2U makes more cautious choice, IMHO. You can increase if numbers stay high.
Have you seen post #17? I want to second it.
Some cats are reported to have heightened sensitivity after Hypo numbers and may react stronger then before to even smaller doses.

 

Wow that's bad news, sorry!

 

You mean increase like give .5 more or at the next dose?

 

He probably will need 2.5, but for a few days I agree stick to 2. We say this because after a very low hypo they can be sensitive to insulin. When the sensitivity wears off your can up it to 2.5. When my cat had a hypo a couple of months ago, two days later I have her a dose half what she usually would get and she went hypo a second time.

 

ETA: to clarify: IF his numbers remain high on 2U dose then you increase - either by 0.25U or by 0.5U at a time.
I use Lantus and increase by 0.25U at a time per TR Protocol I follow. It requires holding the dose for 6 cycles and then evaluate its effectiveness and then do either increase or decrease as needed. Does it make sense?
Normally, after 45 read you'd reduce by 0.25. But because of the reasons Janet stated above I really think 2U is safer.
I have no experience with dosing Vetsulin. Hopefully @ JanetNJ or @Kris & Teasel can help with it.

 

I stand by what I suggested in my post #17 above.

 

Update on Booger. He was 581 before dinner. I did check him after he ate and he was 723. I had been up the whole night before and all day yesterday. I went to bed around 9:30 last night but managed to wake up around 11:30-11:45 and test him. He was 466. Set my alarm for 3:30am, tested him and he was 440. So he stayed pretty steady through the night. The syringes the vet gave me for his insulin are 1 unit increments. It is fairly easy to figure out the .5 dosages but not quite sure I can figure .25 dosages. I plan on getting syringes with these increments on them in the future. Yesterday when I spoke with the vets office, I spoke with a vet tech and told him I was keeping up with Boogers levels on a Google Doc and asked if he wanted me to give him the link to input on Booger's file for the vet to check or for them to have if I call in so they have a visual. He said it was a great idea and gave me his email address so I could send him the link. They added it to Boogers file. I hope she does not get upset with me for only giving him 2 units last night lol. I had mentioned to her on 3/9 when she called me to give me the results of the glucose curve he had done at her office that day that I figured he would need a higher dosage of insulin and she was like " Please do not up his dose without doing a glucose curve and letting me evaluate it." I was like, "Oh, I would never just up his dose without your recommendations as I do not want to kill him." But she immediately jumped to the conclusion that I would try to take him care into my own hands alone and up his dosage lol. I am sure this was purely out of vet instinct to say that to ensure Booger's safety and that is fine, but I am not one of those owners who think they know everything and no longer need her guidance or help. Now, when it comes to lowering his dosage based on him being lower than usual, you better bet I am going to use my better judgment as I would hate to give him a full 3 units and drop him in to a hypo state. Anyway, Thank you all again for your help and support. It means so much to me to have you all and this forum. Once I get my job situation figured out and things back on track, I plan on making a generous donation to this forum! I do not know how I would get through this all without it or you all!

 

You've got a very bouncy cat there. Good place to order syringes is Adwdiabetes.com

 

Have you cut out all the dry food yet? That will probably help your numbers.

 

Janet, not completely. I am working on it. When I feed him wet food at meal time, he mainly licks the liquid out of it. He eats some of it but then it just sets there and I end up having to throw it out. Any suggestions to help him eat more of his wet food? I am feeding him FF pate. Maybe he will eat the flaked tuna as it's more smelly and more like tuna.

 

Yeah he has held pretty steady since his PMPS. Checked him at 5:30 am and he was about 520.

 

Tuna is often a favorite. She may also like the texture of chunky chicken if she likes chomping as it's meaty.

Of she is insistent on dry there is a food called Young Again Zero which is 1% carb. They will send you a free sample of the Young Again if you ask. Youngagainpetfood.com I leave this out for cc in between fancy feast.

 

I have just been keeping down a little bit of the DM since I had bought a bag back in Feb. So that's what he snacks on. I plan on calling OnlyNaturalPet today to talk to them about their dry and canned food. I absolutely LOVE their products! I try to do everything with my animals as naturally as possible. They have great herbal and homeopathy supplements and all their food is natural too. I feel my two little dogs their Homemade dehydrated food which you add water to hydrate of course. It has real meat, peas, carrots, etc in it. They love it. I just got some dried minnows or something for like $0.10 added to my order which people that reviewed said their diabetic cats absolutely love because it adds a little crunchy to their wet food diet. Highly Highly recommend OnlyNaturalPet products to those who are like me and want to keep the chemicals out of their aminals lives if at all possible.

 

Sounds like your doing a great job, what was boogers BG this am

 

The peas and carrots are carbs. If you contact them be sure to ask for the as fed carb percent.

 

637.

 

@JanetNJ The peas and carrots are in the dog food not the cat food. But yeah I am going to call about the carb content in their cat food.

 

Have you retested to see if it’s come down any

 

Yes, I just checked him at 10:30 and he was at 430.

 

The low lime green has set off a big bouncing episode and that can persist for several cycles. It's best to drop the dose and leave it there until the bouncing stops. When that happens you should be able to see the true effect of the dropped dose. So in this instance, you dropped the dose last night to 2 u but he was still in bounce inflated numbers. The black this AM was scary I'm sure but it would have been best to stick to 2 u for a couple of cycles. The 3 u was too high a dose and there's always guesswork involved in deciding how much to drop a dose after a low number. I personally prefer to drop it a little more than might be needed, wait for the BG numbers to calm down and then go back up in dose only 0.25 u at a time at the dose level you're giving.

Here's something I wrote about bouncing that you might find helpful:

1. BG goes low OR lower than usual OR drops too quickly.
2. Kitty's body panics and thinks there's danger (OMG! My BG is too low!).
3. Complex physiologic processes take glycogen stored in the liver (I think of it as "bounce fuel"), convert it to glucose and dump it into the bloodstream to counteract the perceived dangerously low BG.
4. These processes go into overdrive in kitties who are bounce prone and keep the BG propped up varying lengths of time (AKA bouncing).
5. Bounce prone kitty repeats this until his body learns that healthy low numbers are safe. Some kitties are slow learners.
6. Too high a dose of insulin can keep them bouncing over and over until the " bounce fuel" runs out and they crash - ie., have a hypo episode. That's why we worry so much about kitties that have had too high a starting dose prescribed by the vet and the owner isn't home testing.

 

Thank you, Kris

 

I just did my first comparison test with my AlphaTrak 2 meter and my ReliOn meter. AplhaTrak 2 was 257 and ReliOn was 218. Which 257 is pretty consistent with what he has been at this time of day for the previous 3 days.

 

This is why using a human meter scares me. The first test I did with the same drop of blood, the Alphatrak 2 said 257 and the ReliOn said 218. Ok a 39 point difference, not too bad. Second test, Alphatrak 2 626, ReliOn 511. That is a big difference (115). So I did it again, Alphatrak 2 626, ReliOn 569 (57 difference).

 

You'll always see a larger difference at the top of the range. The two meter types are closer-- but not ever really identical-- at the low end. That's why the main numbers we pay attention to are the "take action" numbers (50 on a human meter, 68 on a pet meter). Other than that, don't worry about differences-- just pick the meter that works for you, and use that!

 

Well since he is not regulated yet, I need to keep track of his levels so that the vet can adjust him accordingly. Once he is regulated, I would feel more comfortable just using a human monitor. I wish AlphaTrack a.k.a Abbott would get their head out of their bum and lower the cost of the test stips for either the Alphatrak strips or the freestyle strips. Freestyle strips are still in the $30 range and I saw the Alphatrak strips on Amazon today for $43 something.

 

Good deal if it is for 100 strips.

Once he is regulated by your vet please let me know as I have never seen a vet achieving cat's regulation in my 12+ month on here. Nor have I ever heard of one.

My vet, as many others, thinks it is ok for my girl to be around / above 200 all of the time - and that's exactly the level of BG at which irreparable bodily damage occurs if kept steadily that high over time. To him it means regulation. He also wants to read from a pet specific meter

Best of luck to you. That deal on Alpha strips sounds good. Do you think they'll ship it out timely? I hope they do because Booger really need his BG levels checked.

 

The price came down. They used to be $53. I would get them off adw with a discount code for $48, so I was thrilled when the price dropped to $43.

 

It's for 50 strips.

 

Yes, last time I ordered some, I got them next day. Trust me I want him regulated to the normal levels he is supposed to be but I am not a vet and I don't want to do more harm than good. I think my vet just wants to get him steady on a dose of insulin before we start adjusting to get him regulated. At least I hope.

 

Yes, the freestyle lite are like $33 for 50 and $61 for 100

 

Booger just went hypo on me again. This is the only time you all will hear me say this. Lesson learned and I should have listened to you all instead of the vet. There I said it. Booger will be getting 2 units starting in the morning. How many days did you all suggest that he stay on this dose? I can't seem to find it. I had a feeling earlier when I checked him +4 and he was 118 that this might happen (though I was hoping it wouldn't) so I knew I had to check him within the hour. Sure enough, he was 41. This time, I was completely calm. I think once you get the first hypo out of the way it is a lot easier to stay calm. Gave him just a little bit of Karo syrup and then gave him some regular cat food which he has been dying to get in to (my other cats' food) for the last 2 hours. I think he knew he needed a little something to prevent this from happening. Every since I switched him to the DM dry and FF wet, he has not had an interest in the Cat Chow Naturals. Only a few times and I truly do believe it was a judgment call on his part to stay out of hypo. So blessed to be a work at home fur-mom!

 

Another good catch.

 

I use relion prime - the cheapest one. Test strips are $18 for 100. I’ll stick to mine- so far - so good. It’s all relative I think.

 

I was like that at first worried about the number diff, but high is high and low is low, I found that when my vet regulated my cat he was giving way to much, I am much happier doing the curve myself at home where my cat is not stressed and then getting advice on here about the units, bella started out on to high of a dose and that dosage came from the vet, we have went down a lot from the 4u he started out on, guess what I’m saying is u can do a curve at home and do daily testing and I don’t know if your cat stresses from vet which will up his BG, mine does, so I’m more comfortable doing it here at home and then getting suggestions of dosage from here, so beginning at 4u, spending 100 a month on strips, now down to .25 to .50u and spending 18.00 a month for 100 strips

 

Sorry, guess what I’m saying is I feel more relax and comfortable on here and cat is less stressed than I do at vets, I’m not saying never go to vets but I go only when I HAVE to

 

Booger is 517 this morning. He is eating now. I know I said I should have listened to you all and I say that because yesterday he was in the 600's at the pre-shots so I did 2.5 like the vet said but yall said to stay at 2. I am wondering now that I went to 2.5 and he has yet another hypo episode, should I just do 2?

 

How long until you have to shoot?

I don't know vetsulin well enough to really give dosing advice (hopefully someone who can will be around soon!), but I'll open up the discussion. Looking at your spreadsheet, it looks like Booger's "bounce" to high numbers after his previous hypo episode lasted a couple of cycles. Never say never, but I think that suggests that the hypo risk today will be low.

 

Should also have asked: are you able to monitor all day today if necessary?

 

That lime green warrants a decrease to 2 u if you're home to monitor. Get a +2 test and if you get a 100+ point drop be prepared to check BG hourly until you're at/past nadir.

 

Thanks Kris. I like the suggestion of 2U. Realized I should have been more clear above-- the comment about hypo risk being low was meant more as reassurance, not a vote in favor of a higher dose.

 

On another note, Nan, I see that Amber has relapsed. Poor you and poor kitty!

 

Yep! Though it's more poor me at the moment-- she's super-duper happy that we're back on a regular schedule of the treats that go along with the pokes! No idea what is going on with her to cause it-- numbers didn't drift up, they shot up overnight and the vet and I can't find a trigger. Maybe we'll never know, maybe it just happens that way sometimes, sigh.

[sorry for thread hijack, Booger's caregiver!]

 

Its ok! Yeah ill be home all day and giving 2 units.

 

Ugh same thing happened with me. 7 months now. It sucks

 

2 hours after 2 units he has gone from 517 to 496. I know that is not the best but at least he didn't drop like a rock.

 

Much better curve today. Stay at 2 u for a few more cycles.

 

Thanks. When I saw him at 148, I made a call to give him just two temptations treats to keep him afloat lol. Just checked him about 30 minutes or so ago and he was like 450 something. Its gonna be another sleepless night so y'all pray for me lol. Thanks y'all for checking in on my boogie. Hope all of your kitties are doing well!

 

Totally frustrated. Talking to my mom about Booger's diabetes is like talking to her in Japanese. She just doesn't understand. I was trying to tell her that I feel so bad that I am having to poke and prod at him all the time. Especially here lately after his first hypo episode. She's like "Well just check him twice a day, that should be good enough unless he is acting weird." She doesn't get that the two times he has gone hypo, he showed no signs or symptoms. It was purely my intuition that something wasn't right. Then she proceeds to say, " Well, he probably isn't even diabetic. He may just be stressed." <----Like seriously? Then I am just frustrated with him being so dang high at this preshots. I am assuming it's just because his body is still getting adjusted to the insulin maybe and it's at the end of the Vetsulins run so his BG jumps up?? He has done a lot better today. Hoping for a good night so maybe I will be able to sleep a full night here soon. Sorry for my venting. Just have no one else to vent to that understands. #ForBooger #DiabetesSucks #Tired